The Brain Has Corridors
by Kansas42
Summary: The war is over, but the ghosts remain . . . and they aren't so easily defeated. Harry/Ginny future fic. Spoilers for all books and movies.


Summary: The war is over, but the ghosts remain . . . and they aren't so easily defeated. Harry/Ginny future fic. Spoilers for all books.

A/N: This is actually my first HP fanfic, and if the angst tag didn't give you a hint . . . you may notice that I'm somewhat disregarding the ridiculously peppy tone of the Deathly Hallows epilogue. I'm also only using the books and movies as canon, which means that anything that J.K. Rowling has said in an interview after the fact may be disregarded for my purposes. Consider it an AU, if you must.

"The Brain Has Corridors"

I.

At best, he looks tortured in his sleep.

They all have nightmares, of course. It doesn't matter that the war is over . . . the scars remain, the panic, the certainty that this could all happen again because it happened before. (Because history repeats itself, because an ending is only happy if you stop telling it at the right moment.) Of course they all have ghosts, the ones that linger in their heads, if not beside them.

But the ghosts in Harry's head have always been louder—or maybe he just has more of them.

Ginny watches him as he sleeps, as he writhes against the mattress as though the very sheets are burning his back. She doesn't try to wake him. The pulse in Harry's neck jumps out against the skin like it's trying to break free from his flesh, like it's been bursting at the seams for years now. She knows who he's dreaming about, who he always dreams about. She can tell by how he moves, by how his body arches in his sleep, rising, snapping, coiling and uncoiling.

He doesn't want to worry her. He doesn't want her to know about the dreams, but of course she knows about the dreams, and that isn't why she doesn't wake him.

II.

When he wakes up in the morning, Harry tries not to accidentally catch his reflection in the mirror. His stare must be deliberate—lies don't look at you face-forward. So he brushes his teeth slowly and watches himself slowly brushing his teeth. He is both thankful that his hair is still dark, and that he's managed to live long enough where gray hair is actually a concern.

Ginny comes in, and her hair's a mess, and she's in an old, purple bathrobe, and she is beautiful. They have three kids together, and they are beautiful. He's willing to die for any of them—but hasn't had to yet. This is maybe the most beautiful thing of all, that he gets the opportunity to watch his children grow into their shoulders, that he gets to see each of them become their own people, to enter adulthood. It is an opportunity that his own parents did not have, and Harry cherishes it.

Everything now, it's not all bad. It's not even mostly bad.

But he catches his reflection in the mirror as he moves to kiss his wife, and for just a second, his eyes are the wrong shade of green.

III.

She pretends she doesn't notice how his head twitches sharply to the side.

IV.

The kids are in school, and Harry and Ginny both have the day off, so they decide to have a picnic because it's the kind of lovely day that demands attention. Ginny uses a small enchantment that keeps their blue and white blanket dry from the morning dew, and Harry wards off the insects with his wand, and he still loves magic and always will.

Ginny says, "Mum wants us to come over this weekend. She has some new recipe. Dad has her using Muggle kitchenware."

Harry imagines Mr. Weasley instructing Mrs. Weasley on how to use a waffle maker—no doubt forgetting to plug it in and pouring butter and syrup in with the batter—and grins. "Sounds fantastic. Is everyone coming?"

Ginny hesitates. Harry thinks he knows why. "George?" he asks.

"Not sure," Ginny says. She looks down as a few ants try to make a break for the biscuits, turning in confused circles as they keep ending up where they began. "He might show up. Hard to say, really."

Harry nods. It's been over a year since he's seen George, and he'd been doing well at the time, if by "well" you meant that he'd been financially successful and more or less happy and somehow always incomplete. Harry sometimes wonders who he would rescue if he could only go back and save one person—his most masochistic daydream, the most agonizing of impossible choices that would never be his to make—and sometimes he thinks he would pick Fred over all of them, over Dumbledore, over even his own parents. And it wouldn't be for George or Ron or even just for Ginny, but. . . . just to keep the Weasley family whole, to keep them untouched, bickering, perfect, the family he has always wanted, always envied, never had.

Harry's even talked to Hermione once or twice about the idea, about going back—but most of the Time Turners have been destroyed, and any others that might still be out there are likely locked away or otherwise unreachable. The war was won by the good. No one wants to chance the possibility of another outcome.

Sometimes, Harry thinks it's worth the risk. But being the Chosen One has never meant that he has choices.

Ginny's eyes are still on the ground, following those miserable ants in their repetitive circles, and Harry hates to see her sorrow. He touches her on the cheek and smiles mischievously. "Want to play?" he asks, and without warning, snatches the un-eaten biscuit out of her hand and flies off on his broomstick before she can catch him. Her laughter is sudden and loud as she follows him skyward.

They go up and up in the air, chasing one another, fighting against the wind, and for just a little while, they are kids again and nothing else.

V.

They go to bed tired, and she half-hopes they'll sleep through the night, but the sound of him gasping for air wakes her at a quarter past two in the morning. She lies there on her side, watching her husband jerk back and forth, and is unprepared for his sudden awakening, his green eyes staring into her brown ones.

The first words that spill out of his mouth chill her, and she doesn't even understand them.

He blinks and shudders, turning away from her, and she pulls him back again. His eyes are huge and pleading for something that has never been hers to heal. She tries anyway, though, kissing him on the forehead and whispering, "You have to stop letting him in."

Harry looks at her then, and no, it's not that he has more ghosts (although he does); it's that he can never stop listening to the loudest one, not really, not completely. "Hermione told me that once," he says. "When we were searching for the Horcruxes."

Ginny's smile is soft and tired. "Hermione's smart," she reminds him.

"Yeah." Harry laughs. The laugh stills quickly, goes inward somewhere and dies. Maybe it's eaten. Ginny can't be sure.

"I can't keep him out," Harry admits finally.

"He's not even there," she tells him. "He's hasn't been there in twenty years."

"I know that," Harry snaps, frustrated. Then, after a moment: "Sorry."

Ginny shrugs because if she got angry with Harry every time he became irritable (or vica versa) they would have an exceptionally unhappy marriage, and—save the children—he's the best thing in her life. She holds his hand in hers and tells him, "You're letting a ghost haunt you, and not even a real one."

"I know," Harry says, looking away. "I know. I _am_ trying."

He is.

She is, too.

Harry kisses her and then closes his eyes. Eventually, after minutes or hours, he falls back asleep again, his breathing calmer, easier, steady. The pulse in his neck isn't visible anymore. It's all as it should be, but Ginny can't turn her eyes away, can't fall asleep when he is like this.

Because they all have their own nightmares, of course, no matter that the war is over . . . history will always repeat itself, and the only ending that matters is the one that happens to them all. Harry is not the only person in this house who dreams while he is conscious. The things she sees, the images that haunt her now, haunt her still, will haunt her forever . . .

Ginny pushes herself into her husband's arms and curls her head against his chest, listening for the heartbeat that pounds reassuringly, the proof she needs that is no longer visible. Because at best, Harry makes sleep look painful. At best, she wakes to his tears. And at worst, and at worst . . .

And at worst, he sleeps like the dead.

-FIN


End file.
